


The Art Of Non-Verbal Communication

by sarcasticsra



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:42:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticsra/pseuds/sarcasticsra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo and Lord John Marbury have a late-night chat. They even speak out loud for part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art Of Non-Verbal Communication

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly gen, unless you have slash goggles. It's very vague. An episode tag sort of thing for ‘The Drop-In’. Thank you for the beta, Abigail.

“Ah, and I would expect nothing less from you, Gerald. Really, you’re starting to become quite predictable. I find that there’s nothing more troubling than predictability, don’t you agree?”

Lord John Marbury smiled as he said this, but he didn’t smile like a normal person, not that Leo had ever seen. He smirked, and he grinned, and he leered, and sometimes the corners of his mouth turned up into what would be a smile, except his smiles never said, ‘I’m happy,’ like smiles should; they said, ‘I find this pleasing’ or ‘I have deigned to be amused’ or ‘I am a ridiculously clichéd, pompous Englishman who will condescend to you at every opportunity because I am so very much more intelligent than you and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

Leo conceded he might be projecting a little with that last one. Not with the rest, though. “Your Lordship,” he said, stressing the title as ironically he could muster without being obvious, not that it mattered—Marbury raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment anyway, and _that_ said, ‘I have noticed your feeble attempt at mockery and I am silently judging you for it.’ Roughly. “As you have reminded me countless— _countless_ —times before, you have been educated at Cambridge and the Sorbonne, you are the foremost expert on India and foreign relations, and now you are the newly-minted ambassador to the United States on behalf of Great Britain, so I don’t feel it’s unreasonable to ask—why is it that my name gives you so much trouble? Surely you’ve remembered names much longer and harder to pronounce than my own.”

There was that not-smile again, that smirk that said, ‘Are you quite certain you’re ready for this game?’ _Throw out the rulebooks, Lord Fauntleroy,_ he thought. _When I play, I play dirty._

“You’re not an unintelligent man yourself, Gerald,” said Marbury then, using the slightest bit of emphasis on the name before he finished off his glass. “You’re more than well aware that I know your name, I believe.”

“And yet using it at regular intervals seems to elude you,” noted Leo, and Marbury’s smirk turned into a shit-eating grin, though Leo could hear in his mind the objections his Lordship would have if he ever described it that way out loud. The thought almost made _him_ grin.

“It does,” Marbury agreed, eyes alight with mischief and amusement, and Leo guessed they were saying, ‘You are but entertainment to me, you poor fool.’ Something like that, he was sure. “You complain, and you roll your eyes, and you tell everyone that I am but a raving lunatic; nonetheless, I see how you enjoy baiting me as much as I enjoy baiting you, and I’ve always been of the opinion that one should accept the terms of friendship no matter how bizarre they may seem.” Marbury set his glass down on the coffee table, leaning forward and meeting his eyes. “Life is made up of these strange friendships, as diverse and nonsensical as human beings themselves, as you well know— _Leo_.”

And Marbury _smiled_ , and this one _was_ a real smile, because Lord John Marbury lived for proving him wrong and for getting under his skin. Leo just _knew_ that Marbury had somehow managed to figure out what he’d been thinking, and really, he should have found it ridiculous that he was granting supernatural powers to the man, but he didn’t. He just shook his head, because the thing was: he was right. He was usually right, which was part of why he was so infuriating. Men weren’t half as annoying when they were wrong. “Sometimes,” he said at last, after a long moment of comfortably tense silence stretched between them, “I really hate you.”

Marbury grinned again, straightening and leaning back on the couch. “Of course you do, Gerald. That is simply the way of things.”

Leo rolled his eyes, because Marbury’s not-smile was back to insulting him in an impossibly British manner, and so he said, “Even if I am predictable, by the way, there are plenty of worse things than that. Someone could be like _you_ , for instance.”

He smirked. ‘Let’s go,’ it said, and he knew Marbury read it loud and clear.


End file.
